


Breaking Point

by Amarantramentum



Series: The Economics of Death [4]
Category: League of Legends
Genre: Angst, Child Abandonment, I hate myself for writing this too, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Murder, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-11 01:10:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12924108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amarantramentum/pseuds/Amarantramentum
Summary: Because even he had one.





	Breaking Point

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS REALLY DARK AND FUCKED UP PLEASE CLICK THE BACK BUTTON IF YOU READ THE TAGS AND ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH ANYTHING THERE. (And also very reflective of my headcanons of Talon's time in the du Couteau's service; especially the first couple of years).

Talon’s breath caught in the emptiness of his chest, a wet drag in his throat that settled painfully between bruised ribs, somewhere in a space he would not know existed were it not for how terribly, terribly much it  _ached_. A sound escaped his lips, something like the bastard child of a sob and the bitter whining of a kicked dog. It tasted of bile on his tongue, and he swallowed it down, desperate not to allow any weakness to slip. He chewed on his lip desperately, as if he could just as easily forget the heavy metal weighing on his ankle, or the bruises on his skin, or the wetness between his thighs he only  _just_  resisted the urge to claw away at.

Somewhere in the darkness, he heard a rat scurrying past; heard the way its claws scraped along damp stone and its squeaking as it sniffed out its surroundings. He reached out weakly, but it evaded him easily, and he heaved because there was a gnawing in his gut and he could only barely deny it. He felt sick with it, desperate to lessen the way it clawed at his gut. Yet he felt as if he would be sick if he allowed himself to be  _filled_  with anything but the broken silence around him; the dripping of water and the odd creaks of the old mansion filling him up like dread or despair.

He wondered briefly if the rats would come for him. If perhaps they would decide he was much more attractive a meal than the cured meats and strings of herbs and fresh fruits he still could not name in the pantry. Talon had seen it before; had seen it all before, and he  _yearned_  for the sharpness of teeth on his skin and blood and the inevitable slow descent into blissful  _darkness_  that would undoubtedly follow. Nothing could possibly hurt more than the way his ankle subbed raw against cold metal, the smell of iron undeniable and heavy in the still air. Nothing could possibly hurt more than the way he heaved with heavy breaths now, unable to stop them as they came and came and came.

He brought his hands up to his face; hid it as if he could stop or hide his bitter tears with such a simple motion. Talon felt much too like a child again: afraid and alone and lost in an overwhelming darkness that suffocated him. Oh, how it surrounded him with the tempting promise of  _sleep_  or  _death_.

He did not know which he yearned for more.

* * *

 When finally, he did stop sobbing, it was not because the well of his tears had dried, but because his heart caught itself in between beats, frozen in a single moment as if time itself had chosen to stop. There was a creak beyond the heavy wooden door, above the stairs, and just beyond his reach. He did not sniffle, and he certainly did not move, not daring to make a noise as he wondered with bated breath whether it was the sound of an old house in the night, or his –  _punishment_.

His heart was caught in his throat in that moment, and everything bled away. Suddenly, for a single –  _blessed_  – moment, he did not remember the drying, tacky slick, cold and ever-present, caught between his thighs. Suddenly, there was no heavy iron dragging him into the ground. Suddenly, there was neither pain nor doubt nor self-pity.

Suddenly, all he yearned for was to  _live_.

The moment stretched into eternity. There was nothing that could pull him away from it, and his heart would not start again. It felt both stuck in the moment, and beating as rapidly as a heart possibly could, and he was sick with it.

But every moment came to an end, even this one, as tension bled away into an exhaustion that sapped all the strength from his bones. There was nobody beyond but the ghost of his own terrified mind, it seemed, but that did not gladden his heart. He felt little more than a husk now, starved and alone and so terribly  _exhausted_. It ate at his heart so he could not feel the coolness of the wet stone beneath his skin, the coldness seeping through soaked, thin clothes. It ate at his mind so there was nothing but an overwhelming darkness which fogged his mind and made it difficult to even breathe or remember his name before  _Talon_.

It was a relief. A respite he had not dared to hope for. He breathed a sigh and buried his face in his arms, drawing his legs as much as he could to his chest.

It was a comfort he did not deserve.

* * *

 Talon watched morning rise through the slit at the bottom of the door as sunlight flooded the kitchen beyond. Soon, the dark place in the basement filled with the smells of morning bread and things he could not name, that made his stomach protest at the – rather pleasurable, if torturous – smell of breakfast.

Breakfast. Even now, it was an odd concept to him. Talon had only ever eaten when he could, whether because his master deigned then to feed him, or because finally, he managed to swipe a meal (or indeed, enough coin to afford one). He was not a man of any particular means, and  _breakfast_  was both a curse and all he had ever wished for.

* * *

 He could only guess that it was some time after breakfast when the General – no,  _Master_  – came to open the door. The word made him sick to his stomach, even now as he recalled how that particular –  _patron_  – had screamed as he cut the life from him, letter opener as comfortable in his hand as any well-sharpened blade he had ever held. It reminded him all too much that here, he was worthless. A lost child, given up years and years ago so the elements would take him – except they never did, and all that he had to keep him alive was his body and his skill with the blade and it certainly seemed Master appreciated them both.

He had no worth save what Master gave him.

He gathered himself as well as he could; prostrated himself before the door as it opened, and shuddered ever-so-slightly beneath his master’s watchful gaze. Here, he could not think of the sickness in his gut. Here, he did not think of Master’s spend, dried to his thighs. Here, he did not think; it was not his place to do so. All he needed to do was to follow Master’s orders and please him however he could. That was all he needed to do; his defiance had blinded him to it for so long.

Yet something in him dared to defy all the same, and he imagined himself strangling the man with his bare hands for the briefest of moments. It tore at him; something like old defiance that he swallowed down resolutely, because he was no impudent child.

“Behave, and your visits here will be rare and far in-between. Surely, you should have learnt this by now.”

“Yes, Master. I understand. I apologise for my previous conduct.”

Hands were almost gentle on him as Master unlocked the heavy manacle around his ankle. As Master cupped his face and kissed him, every bit as rough and desirous as the night before, and Talon yearned for his kindness; a yearning which burnt in his gut, low and constant like thirst or hunger or a desire to  _please_.

He kept his eyes trained on the ground. Obediently.

“I am yours, Master.”

“You are indeed, Talon.”

And there was a subtle comfort in that.


End file.
